And what I mean by that is—as soon as we returned home from our San Diego Spring Break trip during the first week of March and things really began to progress quickly, we followed guidelines and eventually adhered to shelter at home orders, and though restrictions have lifted week by week, we have yet to take the kiddos in public.
About a month ago, as restrictions eased, and the hubby began to work from the office a couple days a week, I began to force myself to make an outing or so a week, alone (to Target or Homegoods, or someplace safe and known to me), so I could start to re-acclimate myself to being in public, and to help support the economy, in a way. And it’s definitely helped me feel more at easy with being out and about.
Additionally, we’ve been trying to go through a drive-thru or order pizza once or twice a week in an effort to begin our own normalization process.
But, again, there hasn’t been a driving need to bring the kiddos anywhere in public, so we just...haven’t.
They’ve gone driving around with us, or hung out in the car when the hubby or I have to run into a grocery store for something, but otherwise, they’ve remained happy homebodies, as there’s been no need to do otherwise.
Now. I feel like it’s really important to note here that every individual and family has to ease into a new normal at their own pace, for their own reasons.
Even our pastor’s (streaming) sermon today focused on avoiding judgment, as people choose to acclimate (or not), and it was such lovely reinforcement to hear.
I will fully admit that we’re probably on the conservative side of things here, but that’s A-okay by me. Because my crew is still stable and healthy, and I know we’ll get there, eventually. Just take grandpa and grandpa being able to come for a visit, for example. We’re slowing but surely expanding our boundaries and exposure, like many Americans out there.
Now. All, all of that said...today was a great day, because it marked our first family outing above and beyond a drive-thru or whatnot, and it was the perfect marriage of going on an adventure but staying within our current parameters of comfort.
We went through a drive-thru safari of sort! Woohoo!
So, the background: a few months ago, before the pandemic, we had the most fantastic family outing to some natural caverns nearby.
It really was the best ever, and we definitely had plans to return to the nature preserve that’s on the neighboring property. But obviously, plans changed, ha.
But I heard from Chica’s teacher more than a month ago that her family had gone through this particular drive-thru animal adventure, and really recommended it as a fun, and unintentionally socially-distance-perfect activity.
We just had to find the right day to make it happen.
And today was that day. :) And anything that makes my kiddos smile like this is a good thing:
It really was exactly as advertised. Awesome animal sighting fun from the comfort of your own vehicle. We hung out windows and sun roofs while stopped or rolling at 5 mph, and it was all perfectly up close and personal.
And at the end of it all, we had a chance to throw the face masks on the kiddos and allow them a brief, no-contact breeze through the gift shop.
All good things, peeps.
All good thing.
Definitely a good reason for the kiddos to put on their first real, non-bike-riding clothes in 90 days. :)
And now...picture explosion time!
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